The present invention relates to syringes and syringe loading devices and, more particularly, to syringes, syringe loading devices and medical injectors and to medical injector systems including such syringes and syringe loading devices.
A number of injector-actuated syringes and powered injectors for use in medical procedures such as angiography, computed tomography, ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have been developed. U.S. Pat. No. 4,006,736, for example, discloses an injector and syringe for injecting fluid into the vascular system of a human being or an animal. Typically, such injectors comprise drive members such as pistons that connect to a syringe plunger. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,677,980, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, discloses an angiographic injector and syringe wherein the drive member of the injector can be connected to, or disconnected from, the syringe plunger at any point along the travel path of the plunger via a releasable mechanism. A front-loading syringe and injector system is also disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,383,858, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The front-loading injector of U.S. Pat. No. 5,383,858 includes a releasable mounting mechanism for securing the syringe to the front wall of the injector. Other types of releasable mounting mechanisms for front-loading syringes are disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2001-0047153, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference
The use of specifically designed mounting mechanisms generally limits the use of syringes of other various types with front-loading injectors. Syringe adapters attachable to those front-loading injectors are sometimes used to allow the use of such syringes with the front-loading injectors. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,520,653 discloses several adapters designed to allow the use of various syringes with a front-loading injector. Other adapters for front-loading injectors are disclosed, for example, in PCT Publication No. WO 01/08727 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/633,299, filed on Aug. 8, 2000, each assigned to the assignee of the present invention, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Syringes are typically purchased either in a “prefilled” state, containing injection fluid supplied by the manufacturer, or in an empty, “fillable” state. Under current practice, empty syringes are typically attached to or loaded onto the power injector (either directly or via an adapter as known in the art) and connected to a source of injection fluid via, for example, tubing. The drive member of the powered injector is then reversed to draw the syringe plunger rearward within the syringe, thereby drawing injection fluid into the syringe for later injection into a patient. In many medical applications, however, powered injectors are used in procedures and areas in which there are substantial time and access constraints. For example, such time and access constraints often occur in MRI. In an MR suite, space is inherently limited. Injector access is limited as a result of such space limitation and lengthy scan times for patients. In time and/or access constrained procedures, loading of injection fluid into empty syringes using a powered injector results in inefficient use of personnel, equipment, time and/or space.
It is, therefore, very desirable to develop improved syringe loading/filling devices, and systems and methods to improve the efficiency of use of personnel, equipment, time and/or space.